McGinnis 2010/2011 — A Simple Guide to the IAD Framework and Ostrom Workshop Language

What it is

A glossary-style map of the entire Bloomington School vocabulary: IAD core components, plus the adjacent frameworks the Ostrom chapter only gestures at — polycentricity, ADICO grammar of institutions, property rights bundles, local public economies, design principles, SES, behavioral rational choice, and Vincent Ostrom's political theory.

Core claims

1. p. 4 — "design" is a misleading D in IAD (presumes unbiased advice); development and diagnosis (finding "missing institutions") are apt. 2. pp. 5–6 — "governance determines who can do what to whom, and on whose authority"; can be "power with," not "power over." 3. pp. 6–7 — polycentricity: overlapping jurisdictions whose authorities "interact to determine the conditions" governing each other; multi-level/-type/-sectoral/-functional. 4. p. 7 — network-governance advocates err by "presuming that successful adaptations will emerge automatically from complex systems dynamics." 5. p. 7 — Ostrom 2010 recommends abandoning the arena/situation distinction; the action situation is the "black box." 6. p. 8 — action situations are nested and only "nearly decomposable"; stability vs resilience vs robustness distinguished; robustness is the criterion for human-designed systems (p. 13). 7. p. 9 — level-shifting strategy: move an ill-served question to an adjacent arena; "also known as forum-shopping." 8. p. 10 — default conditions = institution-free baseline: "any player can retain any outcome that the player can physically obtain and defend." 9. pp. 11–12 — tragedy of the commons only in ungoverned open access; "drama of the commons" is the accurate phrase; a good's type varies by institutional setting. 10. pp. 13–14 — ADICO: strategies AIC, norms AIC+D, rules full ADICO; the Or Else names the actor "given the responsibility of imposing sanctions"; norms rest on socialization instead. 11. pp. 15–16 — property rights decompose (access, withdrawal, management, exclusion, alienation) into position-defining bundles; CPRs are not automatically common property. 12. pp. 17–19 — local public economies: provision ≠ production; "many units in a public economy monitor the activities of other units"; coordination without a single center; citizen choice/voice/exit. 13. p. 19 — design principles "perhaps better described as good practices": observed correlates of long-term sustainability. 14. p. 22 — cooperation factors include known reputations, "capacity to enter or exit from a group," communication, sanctioning capability.

Key concepts

- {{ref:concept-iad-framework|The IAD framework}} (pp. 4, 7–8, Fig. 1 p. 27) - {{ref:concept-action-arena|Action arena}} (pp. 9–10, incl. default conditions) - {{ref:concept-rule-types|The seven rule types}} (pp. 9–10; "boundary rules" naming) - {{ref:concept-rule-levels|Levels of rules}} (pp. 8–9, incl. meta-constitutional, forum-shopping) - {{ref:concept-adico-grammar|ADICO grammar of institutions}} (pp. 13–15) - {{ref:concept-design-principles|The eight CPR design principles}} (pp. 19–20) - {{ref:concept-polycentricity|Polycentricity}} (pp. 6–7); {{ref:concept-requisite-variety|Requisite variety (Ashby's law, institutionalized)}} (institutional diversity, p. 5); {{ref:concept-rules-in-use|Rules-in-use vs rules-in-form}} (p. 12); community attributes p. 12; evaluative criteria p. 13; SES pp. 20–21.

Hooks to the Nostr thesis

- ADICO with no Or Else: a kind-1984 report is norm-shaped; enforcement is crowdsourced — {{ref:claim-split-sanctions|Split sanctions}}, {{ref:concept-adico-grammar|ADICO grammar of institutions}}. - Default conditions ≈ the open relay pool; gated relays are boundary overlays that never delete the defaults — {{ref:claim-composable-bounded-institutions|Bounded institutions compose on the open substrate}}. - Citizen exit + forum-shopping = relay-hopping — {{ref:concept-exit-voice|Exit, voice, and forking}}, {{ref:concept-interjurisdictional-competition|Interjurisdictional competition}}. - Distributed specialist monitoring (p. 18) = label providers, WoT scorers, report bots — {{ref:claim-multiplicity-stack|Multiplicity}}. - Microsituational cooperation variables (p. 22) are measurable in the wild on Nostr — {{ref:claim-formation-observable|Formation is observable for the first time}}.

Tensions / open questions

- Polycentricity requires inter-authority interaction; relay operators mostly don't interact — protocol substitutes for negotiation ({{ref:concept-polycentricity|Polycentricity}}, {{ref:concept-governance-as-software|Governance as software}}). - Norms enforced only where widely shared (p. 14); Nostr enforcement rides operators' private incentives instead — {{ref:q-decoupled-vs-unitary-sanctions|Q: Does decoupled sanctioning govern better or worse than unitary?}}. - Design principle 7 (recognition by higher authorities) has no referent on Nostr; principle 1 and 5 are the ones Nostr disassembles. - Robustness of what unit — relay, relay set, or protocol? — {{ref:q-generativity-robustness|Q: Is robustness generativity rather than redundancy?}}, {{ref:claim-expand-contract|Expand–contract}}.

Related: - {{ref:emergentgov|Index}} - {{ref:src-ostrom-irc-iad|Ostrom 2007}} - {{ref:concept-boundary-rules|Boundary (entry and exit) rules}} - {{ref:concept-graduated-sanctions|Graduated sanctions}} - {{ref:concept-cpr-vs-knowledge-commons|CPR theory vs. knowledge commons}} - {{ref:q-goods-typology-fit|Q: Where does Nostr sit in the goods typology?}} - {{ref:q-boundary-sybil|Q: How does a commons reconstitute boundaries it cannot enforce?}}